Fans have long wondered when Marvel Studios would get around to giving a female superhero her own standalone film. Black Widow seems like the natural candidate to go first, since the character has already proven popular in The Avengers and has a meaty supporting role in next month’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

But in a recent interview, Marvel’s Kevin Feige suggested that Black Widow may work too well as a part of the ensemble, to the extent that he’s wondering if moving ahead with another superheroine would make more sense. And while he’s not naming names yet, he acknowledged that there have been “a lot” of discussions about a Captain Marvel picture — which would fit with the rumor that the character will appear in the MCU by 2016. Hit the jump for the latest dirt.

Feige has previously said that a Black Widow solo outing was a “great” idea, and that the Marvel Studios team already has “various outlines and ideas of where to take that.” However, in a more recent chat with Badass Digest, he indicated that she might be better off as part of an ensemble.

With Widow what’s great is the interaction with all the team members, and the question is whether we want to pluck her out of that. I’m very proud of the way the Marvel movies handle the female characters who are in all the movies we are making, as opposed to feeling the pressure of ‘When are you doing a female movie?’ We’re exploring a lot of Widow, and that’s going to continue with Age of Ultron in a big way.

Feige continued:

Frankly if we do a Black Widow movie after Age of Ultron, when she’s been central in three or four movies I don’t think we’d get the quote unquote credit for it. People would say ‘She’s already a big giant superhero!’ But if we had a great idea, we’d do it.

It doesn’t seem to bode well for Black Widow that Feige is more interested in playing up her supporting role than in talking up her standalone potential. But all hope for a female-driven superhero movie isn’t lost.

“I like the idea if we’re going to do a [female lead], do a new one. Do a wholly new character, do an origin story,” he explained. Asked whether a Captain Marvel movie might be in the cards, he responded. “We’ve talked a lot about [Captain Marvel]. I think that would be very cool.”

Before you get too excited, that vague non-answer isn’t so different from what he’s been saying about a Black Widow movie — or, for that matter, what he’s said about a lot of other rumored projects that haven’t formally been announced yet. And he claims not to know when a female superhero movie is coming, pointing out that the Marvel slate is already mapped out through 2016-2017.

But for what it’s worth, Badass Digest also says they’ve heard from unnamed sources that “we will see an iteration of Captain Marvel onscreen by 2016 – either at the end of Phase Two or the beginning of Phase Three – in another Marvel movie.” Moreover, we’ve previously heard that there is an existing Captain Marvel script. Let’s just hope it actually keeps moving instead of stalling out.